Arizona has more than 17,000 youth in its child welfare system. While each journey is different, these children have all faced hardships and struggles in their short lives. For LGBTQ youth, the foster care system creates additional challenges.
June is LGBTQ Pride Month. Now is the time to take a hard look at how to reduce the stigma and discrimination LGBTQ youth face within the very systems we’ve created to protect them. In Arizona — and across the nation — foster care agencies are in a unique position to address these issues, both systemwide, and in every personal interaction with children, parents, co-workers and the general public.
LGBTQ youth are overrepresented in the foster care system, according to the Human Rights Campaign — the leading LGBTQ rights and advocacy organization in the nation. In fact, HRC says the percentage of LGBTQ youth in the system is greater than LGBTQ youth in the general U.S. population. In many instances, a child’s gender identity, gender expression or sexual orientation are significant contributing factors to their move into the foster care system. Families may reject these children, pushing them out of their homes and into the state’s care.
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Once they enter foster care, that discrimination can escalate, often leading to abuse. According to one study of the Los Angeles foster care system by the Williams Institute at UCLA, LGBTQ youth in foster care are more than twice as likely to live in a group home, and more than twice as likely to report being treated poorly by the foster care system.
Arizona, like most states, does not have foster care nondiscrimination laws or policies inclusive of sexual orientation and gender identity. This makes the role agencies play — in fighting discrimination and embracing the LGBTQ community — even more critical.
Resources are available to help foster care agencies take the lead in this important issue. At Devereux Arizona, we were the first in the state to receive HRC Foundation’s “All Children — All Families (ACAF) Seal of Recognition.” The seal is a sign to the LGBTQ community — including foster and adoptive parents — that we welcome everyone’s involvement in helping Arizona’s children find much-needed homes and stability.
For agencies like ours, HRC provides valuable resources to help craft policies that promote equality and acceptance and maximize the positive impact the agency can have in the community. For agency employees, HRC offers tools to support individuals and families, and empower them to successfully navigate the system, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Devereux calls on foster care agencies to take an active role in embracing the LGBTQ community. Small steps today can make a big impact tomorrow. For example, develop cultural and clinical guidelines for serving LGBTQ youth and families; review your agency’s policies and procedures; or update your process documents to include gender-neutral pronouns.
As connectors between key foster care groups, we can break down barriers where we see them. We can change the system to better support LGBTQ youth. We can connect loving, supportive parents from the LGBTQ community to opportunities to foster and adopt children who are in desperate need of a family structure. And perhaps, most importantly, we can make the foster care system a safe, inclusive and compassionate place for the LGBTQ community.
Yvette Jackson
Yvette Jackson is the assistant executive director at Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health Arizona.